Well, it's that time of the year again! Weather begins to grow colder, leaves on the trees start turning beautiful colors. Incompetent agencies that provided negligent services start crying budget shortfalls! Services at the substandard NOAH Shelter and associated Duffy Clinic remain substandard due to general malfeasance and mismanagement of funds. Clientele were banned into the streets for over ten years as the organization planned lavish expansion projects complete with beautiful homes build for executives.
The organization billed third party insurers, and utilized local and national political figures to insure contruction of the 11.5 million dollar Dana's Field's Project in the neighboring Town of Sandwich. Rick Presbrey and Livia Davis promised the Zoning Board of Appeals and the members of the Sandwich Family Association that they would screen all candidates for felonies and major violent offenses. They promised that they would return unrehabilitated and unrecovered clientele to a new and improved facility scheduled for contruction directly across from Stu Bornstein's Radisson Hotel.
The level of depraved indifference, negligent homicide and manslaughter demonstrated by this negligent organization would have been investigated in any other municipality. But of course...not Barnstable!
Cape shortchanged on homeless funds:
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By Patrick Cassidy
pcassidy@capecodonline.com
October 07, 2009
HYANNIS — In what local housing advocates are calling a potentially devastating blow to the cause, a grant to keep local families from becoming homeless has been awarded at a fraction of what was requested. "We're still going to get the telephone calls, we're still going to get the people walking through the door," said Estella Fritzinger, executive director of the Community Action Committee of Cape Cod and the Islands, the lead agency to request the grant money from the state.
Instead of the $1.6 million asked for in the grant proposal, the Massachusetts Department of Housing and Community Development awarded Fritzinger's organization, Housing Assistance Corp. of Hyannis and the Homeless Prevention Council only $200,000for a variety of programs, including homelessness prevention and other initiatives designed to divert families who would otherwise move into shelters to other forms of housing. The federal stimulus money is allocated by the state agency, which, HAC president and CEO Rick Presbrey said, is more focused on efforts to move families out of motels in other parts of the state than it is on the Cape's needs.
Also, none of the money for the state's Residential Assistance for Families in Transition program that provides short-term financial assistance to families who are homeless or who are about to become homeless is expected to be allocated for the Cape, Presbrey said. The concept behind these programs and efforts over the past 20 years is that it costs much less to keep a family housed than it does to keep them in a shelter or in a motel, Presbrey said.
HAC and the Community Action Committee each see between 20 and 30 people a day who are in need of emergency housing assistance, Presbrey and Fritzinger said. Without the money they had originally requested the agencies will only be able to help 100 families stay in their homes each year versus 700, they said. The state understands the disappointment of regional agencies but was required by strict federal guidelines to disburse the stimulus money throughout the state in the best possible way to prevent homelessness, Housing and Community Development spokesman Phil Hailer wrote in an e-mail to the Times.
In addition to the $200,000 for homelessness prevention services, the Cape — through the Duffy Health Center — will receive more than $600,000 for individual homelessness prevention efforts, Hailer wrote.
Chief Paul MacDonald...You are doing a bang up job with the human services network!From: mary clements (welcometobarnstable@live.com)
Sent: Wed 10/07/09 4:13 PM
To: macdonaldp@barnstablepolice.com; sweeneys@barnstablepolice.com; delaneym@barnstablepolice.com; council@town.barnstable.ma.us; puntatoniom@barnstablepolice.com
Check out Jake Berry in the Cape Cod Times today in reference to funding for homeless services. Chief, you are doing a bang up job handling the "homeless crisis" due to the "imaginary" poor handling and misdirection of funds. It must be terrible for you. I forwarded a copy of this email to Officer Michael Puntatonio. As you know, Mike Puntatonio told me how much he appreciated the homeless when he had to drag Frankie Atwood's dead body out of 75 Pearl Street.
Yes, Puntatonio did tell me to get some pictures of the homes of the officers...well at least one...suggesting "take a picture it will last longer". Thanks for all of your help. Hopefully, there will never be an investigation into the doings of this organization. A number of rapes and homicides were associated with the organization, and holding them accountable would hurt their feelings.
